Water Pump O-Ring Groove - Corolland: the Toyota Corolla Forums

I'm replacing my water pump, and the water pump o-ring groove on my '92 Corolla 140K miles has these impenetrable deposits in it, any ideas on cleaning it out? Q-tips don't give me much. It's awkward to get in there.

Soak with acetone? My wife is picking some up at home depot.

here is a picture: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~wrightwr/images/IMG_3285.jpg

That looks like corrosion to me - nothing short of mechanically scrubbing it out will fix that. Acetone will help degrease it - but won't really "eat" the corrosion. Can you get something on that groove to scrub it - screwdriver, brillo pad, wire brush, etc.? I had similar deposits on some small engines that I'm currently working on - wirebrush cup was the only thing that would clean them out without excessively eating the surrounding material.

Thanks. A properly sized wirebrush cup would have been the perfect thing for me.

I scraped at it with a dentist's pick, got some more material out, but I was afraid of ruining the engine block.

No leaking from that area now, still troubleshooting my coolant system.

With Aloha,

Bill